With Russia mired in what turned out to be the longest recession in two decades, Vladimir Putin won plaudits from investors last year by tasking former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin with drafting an economic program for 2018 to 2024, which happens to be the next presidential term.
Kudrin, who is widely credited with achieving record results in the first half of the Putin era, submitted his plan Tuesday, just before the president’s annual pitch to investors in St. Petersburg, where both men got their start in politics.
